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Obama in Newtown: 'These tragedies must end'

Something must be done, they felt, to end the gun massacres in this country.

Surely, they hoped, our politicians must feel the same way. Even on Capitol Hill, where a great many people are skilled in the ways of doing very little, surely even they must feel the need for action.

But the gun lobby and its minions were ready. They, after all, have had a great deal of practice. And the social media quickly filled with the same message: too soon, too soon. Show respect for the dead. Do nothing now. Don’t “politicize” tragedy.

Four adults are killed in Benghazi and the right-wing politicizes it endlessly. But 20 small children are slaughtered in Connecticut, and the nation is told to do nothing.

I have written about gun madness and the slaughter of the innocent for decades. The NRA playbook holds no mysteries: Demand delay. Sow confusion. Spread around money for the next election.

The NRA is too powerful, the politicians wail. We cannot defeat it.

The NRA is not that powerful. It can be defeated. It spent millions to defeat Barack Obama, and it failed.

But laws do nothing, the gun lobby says. The problem is moral decay!

And yes, Mike Huckabee went on Fox News after the massacre in Newtown, Conn. — not to “politicize,” mind you, because that would be wrong — but to speak the truth as revealed to him.

“We ask why there is violence in our schools, but we’ve systematically removed God from our schools,” he said. “Should we be so surprised that schools would become a place of carnage?”

So we must wait to act until America becomes as pious as Mike Huckabee? Oh, my, that might take a very long time.

Do nothing, do nothing! It’s not guns, it’s mental illness!

But other countries have mental illness. And yet, they have much lower rates of murder and much less carnage than we do. Could that be because they keep guns away from the mentally ill?

Do nothing; do nothing. It’s society. Society is rotten; the police cannot be everywhere; and so we must arm ourselves against the evil ones.

And so a woman in a safe neighborhood in Connecticut collects a small arsenal in her house to protect herself from the evil outside. Her son, some say, seemed disturbed, emotionally ill, perhaps. And yet, she kept semiautomatic pistols and an assault-style rifle around the house with hundreds of rounds of ammunition?

Readers' Comments (241)

Don't worry, Roger. An executive order is coming soon. The NRA may own the red side of the U.S. Congress, but not the White House. This tragedy will not be swept under the rug like so many others were. This time the NRA will pay a very heavy price for their gun madness.

MY SENTIMENTS EXACTLY ! I am sick of the hysteria created by the NRA with their attempts to make citizens bellieve that any regulation of weapons is a threat to a citizen's right to own a pistol to protect his home against an intruder . This is drivel designed to rake in money for their organization.

Americans should hang their heads in shame and look at the rest of the civilized world where children are not murdered at McDonald's or school . These same nuts are always spouting "American exceptionalism" as though the US has no serious flaws to correct . Horse manure ! People who gloss over serious injustices or pathology are EXCEPTIONAL FOOLS .

Our children deserve adults who will not shut up until a better world is created . Maybe the photos of the carnage of the massacred precious bodies would force us too see the reality of our indifference . Do we only care when OUR child is lying in a pile of blood with several bullets in his/her brain? How many more masscres til we tell the NRA to go to Hell ?

At the risk of sounding hopelessly naive, I think this time will be different. This is partly because the political calculus has changed: Obama need not worry about gun owners in swing states, and the NRA revealed itself to be a toothless tiger in November. More importantly, though, the enormity of this tragedy and the shock of the bodies of small children riddled with bullets will finally awake the sleeping masses.

It would be nice if deranged gunmen only went to the schools where Wayne LaPierre's kids go. Regrettably, we all live in the same society, and those of us who are parents will no longer tolerate having our kids' safety compromised by the NRA and the many others who are complicit in murder.

Schumer is right. We have reached the tipping point, and will no longer be dictated to by right wing zealots and gun fetishists.

MY SENTIMENTS EXACTLY ! I am sick of the hysteria created by the NRA with their attempts to make citizens bellieve that any regulation of weapons is a threat to a citizen's right to own a pistol to protect his home against an intruder . This is drivel designed to rake in money for their organization.

Americans should hang their heads in shame and look at the rest of the civilized world where children are not murdered at McDonald's or school . These same nuts are always spouting "American exceptionalism" as though the US has no serious flaws to correct . Horse manure ! People who gloss over serious injustices or pathology are EXCEPTIONAL FOOLS .

Our children deserve adults who will not shut up until a better world is created . Maybe the photos of the carnage of the massacred precious bodies would force us too see the reality of our indifference . Do we only care when OUR child is lying in a pile of blood with several bullets in his/her brain? How many more massacres til we tell the NRA to go to Hell ?

The President is there - it is congress that MUST act - but thank you Roger for 99% of your post. It is way past time - other countries have done it - other countries do not have 4 massacres of their own people by their own people in less than 4 years.

The right of children to live without fear is much more important than the right of anyone to hold death in their arms. Get rid of the guns.

God in the schools, Roger, won't stop this carnage. It doesn't stop Christians from posting nonsense in favor of doing nothing on right wing blogs I read. Churches have a role to play but not everybody goes to church or learns the morals if attending. Look at the FL Koran-burning pastor who caused riots and murder abroad. I just rebuked in another forum a family man, grandfather, Vietnam veteran and Christian (he wrote) who advocated more morality and ethics, but no more regulations to squelch his 'thrill' at shooting a Thompson submachine gun he owns in retirement. Regulations might have prompted deranged killer Lanza's mother to install trigger guards or lock her gun collection in a weapons safe and saved 28 lives including hers in Newtown CT. You can't legislate morality, they say, but you may save a few lives.

i have followed your writing for a while, mr. simon. but this has to be the best i've ever read. i am only sorry that it had to follow such an awful event such as this one. your words demonstrate the power of writing to educate and influence us all. i hope that you will continue to speak out with such feeling, force, courage and compassion.

A small point, but one of the major arguments put forth by the NRA: "If we just arm everyone, we can prevent tragedies" has been shown to be hollow. As you point out in your article, the shooter's mother had a wide array of arms with which to protect herself. And they failed her. Horribly. All-but-poetically in the tragic irony. Her guns, her ammunition, her years of training, FAILED her. She became yet another example of what the NRA doesn't want people to know: that the simple fact of keeping guns in the home makes it 4.2 times more likely that the owner will die by gunshot wound. If we arm "everyone," these terrible days will only become more common.

You can't win. Don't aim to take away the guns. Aim to make the owners more responsible. Make the owners culpable for any misuse. In the event of death (accidental or homicide), the owner gets an automatic charge of manslaughter.

There are no excuses for guns not to be locked up with trigger guards and without ammo in the same closet. This is what gun laws in other countries require (separate storage and trigger locks).

It's time that practitioners of the second amendment rights bore the responsibilities that came with those rights.

Well said, Roger. And to the gun crowd I say, Give it a rest.. We’re no longer listening to you endlessly repeat the bogus talking points dreamed up by a bunch of partisan hacks at the NRA, e.g., guns don’t kill people, people kill people, autos kill more than guns, if everyone was armed, shooters would be neutralized, yadda yadda yadda yadda, yadda. Forget it, We’ve been polite and given you your time to speak. But we’re beyond listening to you spout crap that has solved nothing. Between 2001 and 2010 270,000 U.S. citizens were killed by guns. That is a national health epidemic. Every day an average of thirteen children are killed by gun violence. Post all the crap you want. We’re not listening. We’re going after the craven congressman who are too afraid of losing their jobs if they don’t vote with the NRA. Wayne LaPierre, the NRA, and all of you who support them are complicit in mass murder. To quote Peter Finch, “We’re mad as hell and we’re…” Well, you know the rest of the line.

If you hadn't OPENED THE MENTAL INSTITUTIONS, and made it more DIFFICULT to treat the mentally ill, there wouldn't BE cases like this....................

I know you think all psycos are like the friendly folks in "One Flew Over The Cickoo's Nest," but the REALITY is we can SEE the results of your "compassion" every time we see some poor guy living under an overpass mumbling to his imaginary demons..........

ALL OF THESE PEOPLE exhibited SERIOUS sympoms to people around them, but FEAR of actually reporting it to anyone that YOU'VE installed by giving MORE "rights" to the insane than the rest of us is WHY this keeps happening.

MORONS.

We use to GIVE kids in High School rifles and ammunition, and had CLUBS that taught children how to shoot..........

Tax violence. Tax it in the movies. Tax it on TV. Tax it in the news. Tax it in video games. Tax it in Church. Double-tax the glorification of violence. Even if it is on the Cross.

Then put warning spots in the movie theaters before the movies - showing the real effects of gun violence. Showing spinal cord paralysis. Showing how long rehabilitation takes. And the scars that are left. The grieving families. The decades of PTSD. Take 30 seconds. Take a minute. Distinguish between fantasy portrayal of violence from the real effects of gunshot violence.

Put it at the beginning of video games, each time you log on... and each time you log off.

Then put the funding back for our mental health programs to evaluate children, teens and adults. Make it part of the affordable care act. There is no treatment for violence as good as prevention.

Tax violence. Tax it in the movies. Tax it on TV. Tax it in the news. Tax it in video games. Tax it in Church. Double-tax the glorification of violence. Even if it is on the Cross.

Then put warning spots in the movie theaters before the movies - showing the real effects of gun violence. Showing spinal cord paralysis. Showing how long rehabilitation takes. And the scars that are left. The grieving families. The decades of PTSD. Take 30 seconds. Take a minute. Distinguish between fantasy portrayal of violence from the real effects of gunshot violence.

Put it at the beginning of video games, each time you log on... and each time you log off.

Then put the funding back for our mental health programs to evaluate children, teens and adults. Make it part of the affordable care act. There is no treatment for violence as good as prevention.